A Remote Island Within a Danish Kingdom

chapter 4 A Remote Island Within a Danish Kingdom The baroque is not a stylistic phenomenon or agenda that appears periodically in literature; the baroque text emerged at a particular time and was closely connected to a particular type of society. The chronological boundaries of the period can be debated but we may certainly situate it between the Reformation and the onset of roman- ticism, and it certainly includes the seventeenth century. During the baroque period society was notable for the power of the monarchy and the cultural dominance of the church, and the baroque text may be regarded as the intellectual offspring of these two centers of authority. It flourished particularly in learned society; it was innovative and yet its features derive from ancient tradition. This chapter aims to present an overview of seventeenth-century Icelandic society, examining its cultural assumptions and literary practices. In his study of the baroque in Scandinavian literature Wilhelm Friese identifies two cultural environments in which seventeenth-century baroque literature thrived: courtly and non-courtly. There was, first of all, the society in and around the courts of Vienna and Versailles, and also of Copenhagen and Stockholm, where the court was the political and cultural heart of each state. Christian IV ruled Denmark until 1648 and will long be remembered for the splendid buildings he commissioned. He sought out the finest architects, artists, and musicians from England, Holland, and Germany and found projects for all of them in Denmark. In the king’s service we find bourgeois officials, scholars, and artists, all of whose work 57 58 Icelandic Baroque sought to celebrate royal power and glory and to reflect a world governed by order and harmony. Creative arts such as the theatre and ballet flourished, while Petrarchan love lyrics were composed alongside great epic poems. At the court there was ample opportunity for feasting and occasional verse. For example, to accompany a lavish feast held in Copenhagen in 1634 to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Christian (who never became king and died in 1646) to Magdalena Sibilla, Princess of Saxony, there was a major court ballet performance, and plays by Johann Lauremberg (Hans Willumsen Lauremberg, 1590–1658) were staged. Lauremberg had been a professor in his hometown of Rostock before moving to Sorø (in Denmark). In his comedies we find farmers depicted in interludes and their reactions to and misunderstandings of court life—and their use of language—are comically portrayed. Yet the court was charmed by pastoral poetic depictions of the simple rural life, even though it was far removed from the sometimes grim agrarian real- ities. Celadon and Daphne, the young lovers in Honoré D’Urfé’s pastoral novel L’Astrée, a work that had been translated into Danish via German, became popular figures in plays and poems. Anders Bording’s 1645–1647 pastoral poems were a mixture of translation and original composition, whereas Thomas Kingo’s pastoral pieces were entirely his own work. Most of these pastoral works were created for specific courtly occasions. Christian IV’s long reign (1588–1648) was in many respects a golden age; it saw the rise of the bourgeoisie, commerce, industry, and the arts. However, there was a darker side. The king’s foreign policy created much hostility and his campaigns against the Swedes had dire consequences for Denmark and its people. At the time of his death, the country was almost in ruins, with widespread poverty and misery and a total lack of political leadership. Frederik III succeeded Christian IV and in these terrible circumstances succeeded in strengthening royal authority and, with the support of the citi- zenry and the church, greatly reducing the power of the nobility. German influence had been widespread during the 1559–1588 reign of Frederik II and his consort, Sophie Amalie, daughter of the Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg in north Germany. This influence could be seen, for example, in the invitations extended to German poets to spend time at the Danish court, and they expressed their gratitude in A Remote Island Within a Danish Kingdom 59 a variety of occasional poems dedicated to the royal family (Friese 1968, 84 and passim). These writers were certainly influential in promoting German poetry and thought in the host nation (Friese 1968, 66). In several respects Frederik III was unlike his father Christian IV, not least in his more sophisticated cultural tastes. During his reign ballet began to flourish in earnest in Copenhagen and the first operas were performed; and on stage young princes and princesses could be found alongside professional artistes. Frederik III enjoyed French-style ballets based on myths, pastoral plays, hunting and collecting books and works of art (particularly unconventional ones). Icelanders helped him collect vellum manu- scripts from Iceland (Jón Helgason 1958, 84–85). As for his interest in natural science, he was a great admirer of the astronomer Tyge [Tycho] Brahe (1546–1601), and planned to publish a complete edition of his works (Dansk biografisk leksikon 7:243). For eleven years from 1666 Den danske Mercurius, a prose newspaper edited by Anders Bording (1619–1677), was published at the Danish court in Copenhagen. Its principal function was to celebrate Frederik III’s achievements and to legitimize potentially unpopular measures such as tax impositions and military campaigns. The role of the court poet was much the same as that of other courtiers and servants, as Bording notes with some force in his newspaper: “Be true and faithful to the king; that is my advice for avoiding trouble.”1 Kingo too lost no poetic opportunity to sing the praises of the royal family. He composed a poem about the campaigns of Christian V (who reigned 1670–1699), celebrating whenever the king succeeded in annexing new or lost territory into the Danish kingdom. For the baroque poet the king is the sun, the midpoint, the life-giver, the symbol of the divine plan around which everything else is centered, and according to which everyone and everything has its individual station and role in life; it was a plan that no one was authorized to question or challenge. Some scholars argue that while this may have been the nature of the baroque world, everything beyond its confines was of a different order. However, Friese claims that while much seventeenth-century 1. Vær Kongen huld och tro: Det er mit raad for fald (Bording 1984, 75; see Friese 1968, 215). 60 Icelandic Baroque Scandinavian literature can be called court poetry, the non-courtly world cannot be ignored if the baroque period as a whole is to be understood. He argues that the literature created far from the Danish court, in more northerly countries such as Norway and Iceland, is just as much a part of baroque culture, having played an important though different role in society. That difference lies particularly in the fact that the listeners and others who engaged with this culture were from the agrarian and bourgeois classes. The king’s influence certainly extended to distant regions, though it could never be as immediate or intense as in the royal court itself. As an example of bourgeois literature Friese cites the panegyric poems celebrating Gothenburg (by Johan Runius) and Bergen (by Petter Dass). In such verse, created far from the court, different viewpoints emerge, as for example in the depiction of women and marriage. The ideal woman is presented as a hard-working individual who remains at home discharging her household responsibilities, quite unlike the carefree and frivolous young ladies depicted in courtly love-poems. Runius composes for a bourgeois readership, whereas Petter Dass writes about and for rural society, both in Den norske Dale-Viise [The Norwegian valley verse] and later in his most cele- brated work, Nordlands Trompet eller Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt [Nordland’s trumpet, or Description of the Nordland region]. The poem is dedicated not to the king of Norway and Denmark but rather to the people of his home community. In a poem dedicated to Dorothe Engelbretsdatter, Dass states that he lives “mod Verdens Ende” [at the ends of the earth] (Dass 1980, 1:268). Viewed from the Copenhagen royal court Norway and Iceland must indeed have seemed at the margins of civilization, but despite their isolation these regions were in touch with the latest literary and artistic movements (Friese 1968, 226). Many scholars who have discussed the baroque consider that its literary characteristics were inextricably linked with scholars, civil servants, and the nobility, and that it flourished especially in the courts of mainland Europe. The farther we are from these centers, it is suggested, the more provincial and less baroque the culture becomes. In the present chapter’s overview of Icelandic society during the “age of learning” it is therefore appropriate to ask: did A Remote Island Within a Danish Kingdom 61 conditions exist in Iceland that were conducive to the emergence of what can be called baroque literature? Were some genres—their origin, distribution, and use—associated with particular classes and groups? Was there in Iceland a social class that might have felt the need for baroque literature in some form? How did the baroque manifest itself in sacred and secular texts, and how was it connected with the ruling elite and the common people? The seventeenth-century Danish-Norwegian kingdom was the largest in Scandinavia, extending from Greenland in the west to the island of Bornholm in the east, from the northernmost tip of Norway south to the River Elbe. It was a kingdom that embraced Scania, Halland, and Blekinge (now parts of Sweden); Slesvig and parts of Holstein; the island of Gotland; Norway; and Iceland.

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